The Galahad Impulse

She was dressed boardroom chic but it didn’t work — I could see the va-voom anyway. The trim pants were a little too trim, the tight jacket a little too tight, the noisy heels a little too spiked. Maybe, I thought, braking for the light, all that va-voom was simply too sculptured and cantalouped for any drapery to conceal. And the way it shimmied and swished. My hand strayed toward my lap.

When Miss VaVoom click-clacked around the corner, I turned with her and eased along behind. On full glandular alert. What would I do if she whirled and faced me down? Probably grin stupidly or speed away. Two of my specialties, duh and adios.

At the next corner she turned again. Reluctantly I called it quits. Sooner or later she’d spot me and call a cop. Not good for an out-of-towner on a business trip. So I stopped at the curb for a farewell ogle as she pranced away. Parting is such sweet sorrow, from such a tush.

Suddenly a black Taurus shot around me. It slammed to a stop next to Miss VaVoom and two bullnecks in polo shirts leaped out. Grabbed her. Spun her into the rear seat. Jumped back into the Taurus, which tore away. I stared dumbly, unblinking, incredulous at the ten-second kidnapping I had just witnessed. I looked all around; no one seemed excited. Was I the only one who had seen it?

I wheeled to the right and and floored it. Roared down the block and through a yellow light. Zigged around a double-parked truck, forcing a jaywalker back to the curb. I saw the Taurus a few cars in front. I thought of bumping up on the sidewalk, barreling ahead and ramming them on their flank. Adrenalin plus testosterone; macho stupido.

The light changed, trapping both of us. I fished out my cell and stabbed 911. After three rings I was screaming prehistoric curses. Three more rings. Then a flat male voice: “Traffic Control.”

“Yes, this is — I’m calling from a cell, I just witnessed a kidnaping, I think, a girl — woman — was just snatched off the sidewalk and shoved in a car. By two men. I couldn’t believe it. A black Taurus. I’m following it.”

“You’re following the kidnap car?”

“Yes.”

“What is your name, sir?”

“My name? What — Reese Mahaffey. Reese Mahaffey.”

“What is your location?”

“On ... Third Street, going ... east. West! West! Toward the Interstate, I think, I’m from out of town.”

“How far are you from the Interstate?”

“Four or five blocks, I think ... just crossing something now — Talmadge! Talmadge! There’s a lot of traffic.”

“Are you directly behind the kidnap car?”

“No — about five cars back.”

“Can you read the license plate?”

“No, but I can get closer. They don’t know I’m following them. I don’t think.”

The flat voice said, “No, it’s interiors today. They just handed me the shooting schedule. Whatever this is, it sure ain’t no movie.”

My pulse spurted. Then the intervening cars peeled away magically and suddenly I was directly behind the black Taurus, which accelerated up the ramp and onto the Interstate. I did the same, dictating the license number to Traffic Control. There were two bullnecks visible in the front seat and one in the back. Miss VaVoom was out of sight.

“Don’t get too close,” Traffic Control said. “Change lanes. Call out each exit.”

I dropped back and crossed to the far-left lane. As I announced each exit, Traffic Control said “Roger.” His voice was steady but alert. I was slowing up the fast lane — the guy behind me was flashing his headlights. I ignored him. Suddenly in my right-side mirror two blue-and-whites were coming up fast. The first pulled even with me, the officer behind the wheel flashing a thumbs-up and motioning me to hang back. The second shot on ahead and maneuvered in front of the Taurus, and a third blue-and-white zoomed up and pulled in behind it. Then the first one edged alongside. The Taurus was trapped. All the flashing lights and sirens came on at once.

The police cars slowed down in perfect precision as if choreographed, forcing the Taurus to the shoulder. An amplified voice was barking something. More blue-and-whites arrived. I pulled into the median where a few rubberneckers had stopped. As I got out of my car, officers with drawn weapons surrounded the black car and the three thick-necks emerged slowly, empty hands exposed.

Then she got out. The gray pants had been torn, the jacket was twisted oddly. Her hair was wild. She was breathing heavily. She was gorgeous. Two officers helped her stand. Suddenly she broke loose and ran at one of the handcuffed kidnappers, tearing at his face. An officer stopped her. I could hear her screaming.

When she got into the lead blue-and-white, I edged back onto the Interstate and crossed four lanes like a Manhattan cabbie. I was going to keep following the sultry Miss VaVoom. Glands will have their way.

An hour later I was standing before a typewriter cop. When I told him who I was, he broke into a broad smile and yelled for all to hear. “The Cell Phone Kid!”

Reading his name tag, I asked, “Is she okay, Officer Slade?”

“Mrs. Lacey? She’ll be okay. You know her?”

“Never saw her before today.” Bummer. Mrs.

A door opened to an office in the rear, and a stocky man in a coat and tie and baggy trousers came out.

“Well, Mahaffey, there’s plenty of so-called upright citizens in the right place at the right time, and they don’t do a damn thing.”

More officers appeared. One was the thumbs-up cop from the Interstate.

“I’m Sergeant Davidson, Mahaffey. Way to go.” His grip was strong, too. I felt like a candidate for minor office.

Captain Wyman took my arm and steered me toward his office. It was a large room with a big desk, four or five chairs and a long leather sofa. She was leaning forward on the sofa holding a styrofoam cup in both hands. Her gray pants were torn in several places and a lot of tanned and succulent flesh was showing, as was a loose black strand of garter belt. I hadn’t seen one in years, but memory is an aphrodisiac. My pulse jackhammered in all the appropriate places.

“Mrs. Lacey,” Captain Wyman said, “I thought you might want to meet the man responsible for your rescue. This is Reese Mahaffey.” He made a little bow, like an impresario.

“The Cell Phone Kid.” She was about my age, deep thirtysomething. She put down her cup, rose with a purposeful smile, and threw her arms around me. Hugged and pressed hard. Kissed hard, with tongue. I pressed back, kissed back. Was this happening? She could feel me, I was sure. We broke off just in time. I was hot and shivering at once, jackhammers on jackhammers.

“Mrs. Lacey – ”

“Pamela. Pam. My Galahad must call me by my first name.”

“Pamela.”

“You were in the red convertible.”

“Yes. That’s right. Did you see me?”

She tilted her head slightly, her breasts thrusting, her eyes narrowing just a trace. An eyesmile. “My Galahad. Without you ...”

I was fondling her hand. Probably slavering. I wanted to fall to my knees and worship her with my tongue. Me, Galahad? Glands know no chivalry.

The door opened and Officer Slade entered with two men. One wore golf clothes, the other a dark suit and tie. The golfer went straight to Pam and embraced her. I felt something — the Galahad impulse, I suppose. She pulled away quickly.

“Captain, this is my husband, Brian Lacey. And his partner, David Kerr.” Everyone shook hands. “And, Brian, this is Sir Galahad, Reese Mahaffey, who saved my life.” Her voice quavered a little.

Brian Lacey came over and stood awkwardly in front of me. “Mr. Mahaffey, I don’t have the words to say what I feel. Pam and I are in your debt.” We shook hands stiffly. He went and sat beside Pam on the leather sofa. My eyes were drawn to his tasselled loafers and silk patterned socks.

The suit, David Kerr, came over and we shook hands too. A regular shakefest. “Thank God for you, Reese Mahaffey. Thank God you were in the right place at the right time.” His eyes were puffy-red and his lips trembled. Dorkball.

So, Kerr and Lacey of Kerr-Lacey. The bio-medical hotshots who had crashed and burned waiting for FDA approvals. There was a lot of talk about the company, all bad.

I’d met enough business partners to recognize that Pam’s husband Brian was the outside man, the golfer and schmoozer. And David Kerr, with his accountant’s glasses and cuffed trousers, was the inside man. Very practical setup. On paper.

Brian Lacey sat upright on the sofa with his arm resting stiffly on Pam’s shoulders. She had resumed her forward-leaning pose, holding the glass of bourbon with both hands. She toyed with the strand of black elastic, eyesmiling at me, crossed her legs and leaned back. Thunderous jackhammers.

Brian Lacey jumped up.

“I want to see them, Captain! I want to see the SOBs!”

“You think you know them?”

“They could be ex-employees. Hell, current employees!”

Wyman and the cops escorted the two partners outside. Pam and I found ourselves suddenly alone, side by side on the leather sofa.

“I was following you today, Pamela. That’s why I was in the right place at the right time.”

“Following me.”

“My glands made me do it.”

She eyesmiled and touched my leg. Mid-thigh. Gently stroked.

“As soon as I saw you I had an instant erection. I think it’s permanent.”

Her hand crept higher. I sucked in air.

“Permanent?” she said. “You move in tonight.” Still higher.

“God, Pamela.” I leaned to kiss her.

As our tongues met she squeezed and pinched and raked her nails and I exploded. Hot and wet like a geyser. Volcano. Surface-to-air missile. She kept fondling and stroking and milking. I had never come so massively. With aftershocks, little jackhammers.

“I’m having a multiple something. Think what we could do naked.”

“Oh I am.”

“They’ll never let us in the police station again.”

Giggling, she whispered, “Where are you staying?”

“The Westin.”

“Clever of you, Galahad, to wear dark trousers.”

“It’s very trendy for permanent erections.”

There was a noise outside. Milady of the Good Hands grabbed her bourbon and slung it into my crotch.

The door opened like a gunshot. We jumped too suddenly and laughed too loudly. It was Wyman. He ignored our shiftiness.

“A million dollars!” Pam said. “We’re virtually bankrupt. Who are these people?”

“We don’t know. No IDs, they won’t talk, we’re runnin’ prints.”

Later, after we had signed statements, Wyman let us go with a warning to be very careful. In the parking lot there was a tense silence. David Kerr hugged Pam, got in his car and drove off. Brian said he was going to the office to review personnel records, see if anything clicked, identify the culprit.

“I’ll get a room at the Westin,” Pam told him. “I don’t want to go home.”

Brian nodded. No argument, which seemed odd but was fine with me. It was only seven o’clock.

An hour later, all cleaned up, we got dirty again. She started in a pair of boxers and a T-shirt from my suitcase, but they were early casualties. Hands, so prominent earlier, gave way to lips and tongues, and we devoured each other as if we had just invented soixante-neuf. She was delicious. When her perfect thighs trapped my face, I shivered intensely from head to toe and licked the ABCs, the pledge of allegiance and most of the periodic table of elements. She encouraged me with moans and nibbles and long slow wet slurps and quick nips and a vacuum number on the glans that tripped all the wires. I exploded into her welcoming mouth even as I tongued her lushness. She came too, more than once, pulling my face into her, clamping it inside those soft thighs. I would have stayed there forever. We nuzzled silently for awhile until all the jackhammers stopped.

Room service brought us a bottle of merlot, platters of red meat, potatoes swimming in sour cream and a salad tossed with blue cheese.

We ate as greedily as we had made love. Finally, all organs sated, we sprawled on the king-size bed, towels covering the wet spots.

I said, “Pam, something’s wrong with all this.”

She looked at me incredulously.

“No, no, not the sex. We just found the Holy Grail of sex.”

“We didn’t screw.”

“No, that’s true, but I’m not an acrobat. There’s more to come.”

“I don’t like to swallow but I wanted to drink all of you. There was a lot.”

“After Wyman’s office, I think I was down a pint.”

We giggled and fondled a little. I felt a stirring again. Unbelievable.

“I meant, something’s wrong with this kidnapping.”

She looked at me, alert now.

I said, “Why didn’t Brian have golf shoes on?”

I took her hand. “If someone had raced out to me on the sixteenth hole and told me my wife had been kidnapped, I’d come running — even though the crime had been foiled. I wouldn’t stop to change shoes, certainly not socks.”

“Socks?”

“I’m a golfer, trust me. He was wearing silk socks.”

She straightened up. “What are you saying, Reese?”

“I’m saying something’s wrong. I’m saying you and Brian aren’t getting along very well. I’m saying when he first saw you in Wyman’s office, it was a very standoffish embrace. No ‘Thank God you’re safe!’ No emotion. He said more to me than to you. And he sat next to you very awkwardly, not like a husband whose wife could have been....”

She started to say something but I went on. “David Kerr gave you a better hug than Brian did. And Brian was more interested in the personnel records than being with you tonight.”

“You’re right, we don’t have a very good marriage.” She looked away. “Sir Galahad, the detective.”

“I don’t think you were dressed for shopping, either.”

“What does that mean?”

“The reason I witnessed the kidnapping is that I was following you. In my car. I was just watching you ... walk, move, admiring you from a distance. You’re very ... admirable. As in instant blue-steel hardon.”

“If I’d seen you first, I might have followed you.”

“You were wearing a tight outfit with spiked heels and a garter belt and thong panties and a low-cut bra. I think you were dressed for someone.”

A shadow crossed her face.

“I think you were going to meet someone. Your husband was playing golf, and you were heading for a rendezvous.”

“This is insane.”

“Were you going to meet David Kerr?”

“What? David? How could you possibly think that?”

“The way he looked at you.”

She laughed in a new way. “Sir Galahad, the meddling detective! You’re right, of course. I have a lousy marriage with Brian and a lousy affair with David. Could it possibly be me?”

I looked at her sternly.

“What? What? Say something, Reese! I’m scared!”

I knew she could see it but couldn’t look at it.

“Were you and David totally discreet?”

“Totally. Always. No one knew.”

“David likes garter belts, I suppose.”

She made a face. “David likes anything.”

“Once a friend of mine confessed to me he’d been having an affair and had to tell someone. I told him I already knew and so did everyone else, including his wife.”

“You think Brian knew?”

“Don’t you?”

She finished her wine and stared off. Looking at it now, putting it together.

I said, “Suppose some things. Suppose your husband discovers your affair with his partner, whom he’s having trouble with anyway because of business problems. Partners always blame each other. Does Brian play golf more or less regularly on Tuesdays? And do you and David play while Brian’s threeputting?”

Her eyes answered yes to both questions.

“Anyway, suppose Brian knew. He dreams up a way to get your family cash and the company’s cash and maybe some of David’s, and to rough you up while he’s doing it. Maybe really rough you up. He finds out about your little trysting place — follows you, has you followed, doesn’t matter. He learns that his golf schedule determines your play schedule. Perfect. Now all he has to do is recruit three hard cases to do the dirty work, and that’s not very tough for a Type A entrepreneur. He’s got a perfect plan and a perfect alibi.”

She curled forward. “He’s capable of it. He’s meticulous. God.”

“When he demanded to see the kidnappers, he was trying to send them a message. Don’t talk, I’ll work everything out.”

“I’m cold all over.” She found my hand, her eyes round and wet. “Do you think he told them to kill me?”

“I don’t know, Pamela.”

She looked very scared. “Can I stay with you?”

“Of course. Mandatory.”

I called Wyman, who was still at work. As soon as I launched into my theory, he interrupted.

“You’re right, Mahaffey — we went to arrest him. He split.”

“Split?”

“We’ll find him. He shaved his head in the executive john. Had to launch his escape plan a little earlier than scheduled.”

“And I thought I was Sherlock Holmes.”

“I had some help. One of the heavies confessed.”

“Oh.” I felt better. “That’s cheating.”

“Not the way we do it.”

I laughed. This Wyman was something.

“Captain, let me ask a question. Why did you leave Pam and me alone in your office while the others were being questioned? We might have been in cahoots, getting our story straight.”

“Why did I leave you alone — just you, Pam and my little Sony?”

I gulped, then burst out laughing. “So you eavesdropped.”

“She gave everybody a boner, Mahaffey. And you’re the one who got lucky. But we will let you in the police station again. Is she there with you?”

“Should I plead the Fifth? Yes.”

“God bless you, Mahaffey, god damn it. Call me tomorrow, the Chief wants to give you a medal. Your fifteen minutes. It was a close vote but you won.”

Later, much later, much much later, Pam confessed she had noticed me trailing after her in my red convertible. “I was seeing David just to spite my husband, not because David meant anything. Dead-end lousy revenge sex, how mixed up can you get? So I was disappointed when you didn’t keep following me.”

“But I did.”

“Yes you did.”

She nuzzled into me. She was a good nuzzler.

“I’m really no Galahad, Pamela.”

“Perhaps I bring out the best in you.” She reached over. “I think it is permanent.”

She said it with that sultry eyesmile, and I was jackhammered again. This time we took it slowly. Our bodies were slick and expectant when I entered her for the first time. We both gasped. Then she whispered, “Right place, right time, Galahad.” I may have answered. I don’t know. The glands were doing the talking.

Joe Kane is a freelance writer whose passions are few but relatively feverish: golf, gambling, playing piano and writing fiction. A former media consultant and veteran of a hundred political campaigns, he has written two novels (published under another name), two screenplays and dozens of country songs.

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